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The author was inspired by the famous photo of a mother and her 3 children that captures the anguish and courage of a family surviving the depression and dust bowl of the 1930's in rural America. Who might this mother have been? The photographer? What would become of the baby in her arms? All beautifully imagined in this heartfelt story.

The author starts from a famous depression era picture of a migrant mother. Very little is known about this person other than she and her children survived the depression and even thrived due to efforts of the mother. The author builds a fictional story around this absolutely captivating picture. Awesome book. Very well written. Informative in regards to the hardships that people faced during the depression.

I like what the writer did. Take a famous photo that everybody knows but no longer really sees and make us really see it again. Giving the photo a story beyond the standard depression era iconic image, Marisa Silver creates 3 intertwining stories that are a good read and make you think.

As historical fiction, the author had the structure for the story from actual events, at least the woman in the picture and the photographer. Taking that she wrote a remarkable story that takes you from the depth of the depression and the rigors endured on to the family struggles of three remarkable characters. I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

Inspired by a Depression era photograph of a migrant woman and her children, the book contains three narratives - the subject of the photograph, the photographer and a cultural historian. Although the historian is used by the author to make comments about images and seeing and to tie the narratives together, the book may have been stronger if it had contrasted the lives of the photographer and her subject. Interestingly, only the migrant woman's children have uncomplicated adult lives.

This is a beautifully written novel that gives the reader a lot to think about. "In luminous, exquisitely rendered prose, Silver creates an extraordinary tale from a brief moment in history, and reminds us that although a great photograph can capture the essence of a moment, it only scratches the surface of a life." An excellent book club pick; non-fiction companion reading is also available about the photo "Migrant Mother" and its photographer.

Quotes

“She knew her death was near because time had begun to fold like a fan so that the past and the present rubbed together in ways that made her feel supple and porous, as if time were moving through her body and not the other way around.”